Intragroup Emotions: Physiological Linkage and Social Presence

Abstract

We investigated how technologically mediating two different components of emotion—communicative expression and physiological state—to group members affects physiological linkage and self-reported feelings in a small group during video viewing. In different conditions the availability of second screen text chat (communicative expression) and visualization of group level physiological heart rates and their dyadic linkage (physiology) was varied. Within this four person group two participants formed a physically co-located dyad and the other two were individually situated in two separate rooms. We found that text chat always increased heart rate synchrony but HR visualization only with non-co-located dyads. We also found that physiological linkage was strongly connected to self-reported social presence. The results encourage further exploration of the possibilities of sharing group member's physiological components of emotion by technological means to enhance mediated communication and strengthen social presence.

A Systematic Review of Social Presence: Definition, Antecedents, and Implications

“…The present paper also identified five studies that explored the impact of absolute physical distance between interactants on feelings of social presence (e.g., Gajadhar et al, 2008 ; Croes et al, 2016 ; Järvelä et al, 2016 ). These studies consistently show a positive relationship between physical proximity and perceptions of social presence.…”

Towards a Deeper Understanding of the Behavioural Implications of Bidirectional Activity-Based Ambient Displays in Ambient Assisted Living Environments

“…Very few studies [30,33,43] address the issue of interpersonal synchrony in mediated environments. Thus, to gain a deeper understanding of this social phenomenon we had to review studies demonstrating synchrony in both real life and mediated contexts.…”

“…Thus, to gain a deeper understanding of this social phenomenon we had to review studies demonstrating synchrony in both real life and mediated contexts. From the literature reviewed, e.g., [30,43,64,79] we can infer the following indicators of synchrony.…”

“…Also, researchers such as Haken et al have considered an in-phase approach to synchrony such that motor signals are homologous and in synchrony [37]. Concerning mediated environments, scholars such as those in [30,43] suggest cross-correlation measures for computing physiological linkage -a related measure of emotion contagion. Moreover, Biocca et al conferred in their model of social presence that the degree of symmetry or correlation is a measure of social presence [8].…”

“…Accordingly, influencing our study design decision to expose half of our participants to the same stimulus (i.e., scripted activities of an actor) to induce interpersonal activity synchrony. Inspired by the previous studies on interpersonal synchrony [14,57] and physiological linkage [30,43] to enhance interpersonal connectedness we assume the relevance of these constructs to provide social support in AAL environments. As such, we defined the following research questions.…”